Navy EOD and Coast Guard Capture 180 Tons of Explosives

Gulf of Oman According to a statement from U.S. Central Command, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard confiscated a large shipment of explosive materials headed to Yemen. Fishing vessel, dhow, was seized in international waters carrying more than 70 tons of the ammonium perchlorate and more than 100 tons of urea fertilizer (an explosive precursor).

Coast Guard ship USCGC John Scheuerman and Navy guided missile destroyer USS The Sullivans supported the operation. It reported took EOD technicians from the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command's Task Force 56 and crew from the USS Hurricane to recover the explosives for proper disposal.

After the explosive material was unloaded, the U.S. military deemed the boat a hazard to commercial ship navigation and sank it in the Gulf of Oman. The USS The Sullivans transferred the four Yemeni crew to the Yemeni Coast Guard in the Gulf of Aden so they could be handed over to Yemeni civil authorities.

This was the first time U.S. forces assigned to the Navy's Fifth Fleet in Bahrain have intercepted ammonium perchlorate, but they seized another large shipment of urea fertilizer earlier this year when the USS Cole and USS Chinook seized a fishing boat in the Gulf of Oman with 40 tons of urea fertilizer coming from the coast of Somalia.